Heathcliff is an alien force who inspires uncontrollable intensities of love and hatred in the members of the family, and the bonds he forms with Catherine are, according to both of them, radically incommensurable with those that bind together the kinship structure of Thrushcross Grange.

Indeed, had this ballet been titled Heathcliff instead of Wuthering Heights that might have been closer to the mark, since the references to the Heights are all but excised from the story, and what is given focus and pre-eminence is the passionate and doomed affair between Cathy and Heathcliff, the everything and nothing of their bodies.

In the case of photographers such as Heathcliff O'Malley, who spent many months in Iraq during the war, they have gone to considerable trouble and personal risk in building up their libraries of material.